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Welterweights

#10 WW | Geoff Neal (13-3, 5-1 UFC) vs. #9 WW | Neil Magny (24-8, 17-7 UFC)

ODDS: Neal (-185), Magny (+160)

Magny has put together a solid UFC career for himself, especially when one considers how rough it started. After beating “The Ultimate Fighter 16” castmate Jon Manley to keep his spot on the roster, Magny lost two straight and probably would have been cut at any time prior to 2014. However, with the UFC expanding its schedule and in need of a larger roster, Magny got another chance and went on a career-defining run, winning 10 of his next 11 fights, all in the span of a shade over two years. Magny is probably a bit underrated at this point. Between his willingness to fight frequently and his reputation for building his resume on quantity rather than quality, he has become a popular callout for welterweights looking to springboard into the Top 10. However, Magny has proven to be a tough out, and after missing all of 2019 due to USADA issues, he has come back in the clear best form of his career. Magny has finally started to make better use of his lengthy frame, forcing opponents to make one of two bad choices: Either try to fight at range and attempt not to get picked apart, or close distance and face Magny’s grimy and effective clinch game. Of course, things still tend to fall apart if an opponent can dominate Magny in one of those two phases. The best strikers that Magny has faced have usually chopped him down, and his last fight saw Michael Chiesa constantly win wrestling and grappling exchanges in a five-round grind. Any hopes of Magny making a late-career run to championship contention seem to have passed, but he is still a difficult test for anyone on the roster and reliable in a way that few fighters are these days. Here, he looks to stave off Neal.

Neal was one of the UFC’s top breakout fighters of 2019. Starting the year in relative anonymity, Neal announced himself with a win over Belal Muhammad in an underrated back-and-forth fight. That gave way to two showcase performances. Neal knocked out Niko Price in an absolute blast of a fight on the UFC 240 main card, then finished the year with a surprisingly clean and quick knockout of the always-durable Mike Perry. For as well as 2019 went for “Handz of Steel,” 2020 saw just about everything go south. After spending the first half of the year trying to find a willing opponent—Magny was one of the few that stepped up—Neal suffered a near-fatal bout of pneumonia that threatened to prematurely end his career. Neal finally made it to the cage on the UFC’s last card of 2020, which resulted in his first loss inside the Octagon, as he was unable to make much headway against Stephen Thompson in a main event assignment. Neal is still a talent to watch, however, and he looks to get back on track now.

This fight should reveal a lot about exactly where Neal sits in the welterweight pecking order. While Neal impressed greatly in his run up the welterweight ladder, there was a clear pattern where he only faced opponents who were willing to come forward and keep engaging in exchanges. That obviously went entirely out the window against Thompson, who greatly limited Neal’s options by forcing him to track down the karateka and create offense of his own. Magny is not known for being overaggressive, so this is likely another situation where Neal has to close the distance. It is unclear if Magny can take away Neal’s options they way Thompson did. Magny has certainly been taken apart by fast and aggressive strikers before, but he has shown some better range weapons in recent years; and even if Neal can close the distance, this might be an instance where Magny can just take the fight to the clinch and ride out a win. It is all a bit hard to parse given the distance between Thompson and the rest of Neal’s opposition, but the bet is that Magny can avoid eating big moments of offense and keep the Dana White’s Contender Series alum at bay. The pick is Magny via decision.

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